DIY: Spray Mist Ink Tutorial

 For the online course I am taking, one of the assignments called for spray mists or inks. The use of them in the assignment was pretty critical (I could complete it without them, but it just wouldn't be the same process at all). And, they are awesome for mixed media art in general. Since I don't live near a craft store that supplies them, and I'm too 'antsy' to purchase some and wait for them in the mail, I thought I would make some! There are many spray ink / mist tutorials online, and they are all a little different and call for multiple items. As everyone knows, all recipes (art or otherwise) often work for some and not for others, and so we all have to tweak a little to get what we want. 

All four of my inks above have been created in a sort-of-different way. I started with the same base for all of them: 50/50 water / alcohol (the 70% rubbing alcohol). I have been working with rubbing alcohol in my art for about a year now, and I like that it dries super quick. And I like how often it will dry with a crisp edge if it was quite a pool of alcohol. What I didn't like, is that it does have the ability to take away the layers below - which can be used in a positive way for subtraction techniques that I have applied to other art - but for the purpose that I want these sprays to be used I don't want that so much. I also wasn't a huge fan of the smell of rubbing alcohol. So I diluted with water - to lessen the lifting effect and the smell. 50/50 is a very vague eye-guesstimate. By no means did I perfectly measure everything. I just used dollar store mini spray bottles too...nothing fancy.

The colours are all created as follows. Please note, that the amount of colour that I added is based on how 'strong' you want your colour. Since there is not measurement for the liquids, this is another guesstimate: add some colour until you think it's good then spray: if too light = add more colour. If too stong = add more water / alcohol.

For the pink-purple: I used a heavy body golden paint (Yes yes, I know they say don't and that it will clog it). But here's what I did: on a plate, I took my paint, and took some of the alcohol / water mix, and used a brush to dilute and smooth out everything into almost a light cream texture. Yes, it may settle. But, there are no "clumps" of paint. If you just added the paint to the mix and shook the bottle, then you might have some clumps. I also added a tiny bit of acrylic shimmer medium to create a shimmer mist. So far, I have had no clogging problems with the heavy body paint (I don't know if it's the alcohol or the fact that I thinned it out before hand).

For the yellow: I used yellow acrylic ink, and a light yellow acrylic soft body paint. I didn't have to pre-dilute any, and just added and shook. 

For the green / teal: I used green and blue acrylic ink. Add and shake. You have to add quite a bit to get a bold colour. 

For the blue: I used soft body paint and ink, with tiny bit of heavy body. 

A helpful note while creating these spray mists: have a piece of heavy paper (I used watercolour paper), and stencils on hand to spray and test the inks, and see how well they work with the stencils. 

And, a very important note: since these inks were made with acrylic "ingredients" - they are not water-soluble like most of the inks out there. Meaning, you can paint over them and everything and they will not smudge!!! Happy dance!!!